I had a little experience awhile ago that I can't quite get out my mind.
I am devoted to critical thinking (which doesn't mean that I am not open to the possibility of extra-ordinary events) so I would like to get all
possible mundane explanations out of the way before jumping to any extra-natural explanations.
I was sitting with a friend in an outdoor cafe. It was late in the evening, everything was dark except for the area where we were sitting, which was
well lit.
There was only a couple sitting at a nearby table, no other guests. No traffic either. (There's only a parking lot nearby, anyway.)
All of the sudden I noticed out of the corner of my eye something grayish moving across the floor past our table; it was moving at the pace of a fast
walking pigeon (heading towards the other occupied table). Which is what I thought it was, until I remembered, a fraction of a second later, that a
pigeon would not be around at that time of the day. So I looked to see what it was.
The thing was nowhere to be seen.
I looked around - like I said, there were no other guests except for that couple, and I had a clear view of all the floor - but I saw nothing. I kept
looking, because that pigeon, or whatever it was, was bound to reappear at some point (or take flight, whih would have been audible and visible,
especially at night). It didn't.
So I turned to my friend, and before I could say anything, he said: "Did you see that?"
I let him describe what he saw (also out of the corner of his eye). He described it exactly as I just did, adding that it resembled "a foot", made of
a very thick grayish shadow - or very disciplined thick smoke".
(It did appear not quite solid to me too; but, like I said, I saw it from the corer of my eye).
Now, that cafe is very unlikely to have rats, but that was my second thought.
Still, I am really grasping at straws here, because the thing did not move as a rat, not to mention that the other couple would have seen it because
it was heading straight to them. (And a rat there would have been a really big deal, believe me.)
Also, a rat would have had to reappear somewhere. There were no holes in the wall nearby, no places where it could have hidden, and to retrace its
steps it would have had to come into view eventually. (Whatever it was, it was not hiding under any tables.)
It couldn't have "blended" in with the floor, because the floor was light colored wood.
It's also worth mentioning that the thing did not produce any audible sounds as it was passing us.
My friend and I were not intoxicated in any way. We didn't even drink alcohol, for that matter.
Neither of us is or was under the influence of any drugs, OTC or otherwise.
We don't usually experience any such events.
Anyway, we kept looking for a long time, and the thing did not reappear.
What
was that?
Opinions, please.
N.B. This hapened in Vienna, in the inner city, but relatively close (around 400 m) to a big park.
I mention this to give an idea of the fauna (because I've seen other threads where people come up with explanations involving very "exotic" fauna that
don't really apply to the places where the incidents took place.)
edit on 26-4-2015 by AdAstra because: (no reason given)